


Hold On, To Me As We Go

by acollectionofdaydreams



Series: 3am Conversations [1]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Everybody Lives, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Pre-Relationship, because I said so, not entirely compliant, post 4x13, s5 never happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:33:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23670868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acollectionofdaydreams/pseuds/acollectionofdaydreams
Summary: Eliot struggles late one night with his body not feeling like his own after the monster's possession, and Quentin is there to make things a little better.
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Series: 3am Conversations [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1704424
Comments: 5
Kudos: 80





	Hold On, To Me As We Go

It had been a week since they’d dumped the monster and his sister into the seam.

Seven days, 10 hours, and 57 minutes. Roughly.

It’s not like Eliot had been keeping track or anything, except he kind of had. He’d never truly appreciated the experience of inhabiting one’s own body before, but he knew it to be a luxury now. It was a bewildering luxury at times, but a luxury nonetheless.

The problem was that for all his grandstanding and planning to take his body back, he hadn’t really considered what it would be like once that happened. It wasn’t like waking up from a nap like he’d hoped. It was more like waking up from a coma to find that his body had been attacked in an alleyway, dropped down a flight of stairs, and then stabbed with an axe while he was asleep. The latter was actually true, it turned out, courtesy of Margo. He’d be bitchier about it if she hadn’t been so on edge from the moment he’d opened his eyes. 

In fact, everyone was on edge around him, and that was part of the problem. Eliot could obviously never hold it against them. He probably could never hold anything against his friends again considering everything they’d sacrificed to keep him alive. Their reactions sort of made him feel grotesque though in some visceral way. It felt like his body still wasn’t his own if it could make Julia jump when he walked into a room or make Margo tense when he reached out for her or make Quentin flinch if he got too close. 

He knew technically the monster was long gone, but was it really, when it was still so present in his every move?

So, seven days, 10 hours, and 57 minutes into his new reality was the moment he decided that this shit had to change.

It just so happened that this exact moment fell at around 3am long after everyone else in the penthouse had gone to bed. He’d promised Margo he wouldn’t be much longer. She was still antsy about letting him out of her sight, and he sort of preferred to not be alone too so it worked out. He’d actually been getting ready for bed and had just finished brushing his teeth when inspiration struck. 

Due to his extensive magical and physical therapy, he’d hardly been in any shape to be concerned about personal grooming, which meant that his long curly hair still hung around his face like a curtain, though he at least had the presence of mind to pull it back into a bun or a short ponytail on most days. Tonight though, he pulled out the elastic band and simply stared at his reflection as the waves fell onto his shoulders. That wasn’t his hair. It wasn’t his pallid and blotchy skin. It wasn’t his body.

The hair was at least one thing he could do something about with some immediacy. So, he dug around in the drawers with a lowkey manic energy flowing through his veins until he found a pair of scissors. He knew there was no hope of achieving his preferred cut on his own, but he could at least do _something_. Literally _any_ change at this point would be enough to put his own mark on his physical form in a meaningful way. He reached for a section of hair near the front and carefully smoothed it out before tucking it between his fingers. 

It wouldn’t be the first time he’d cut his own hair. He’d had several misguided adventures in cosmetology as an adolescent who desperately wanted to make his style his own in an otherwise oppressive environment. He still remembered that one fateful day his mother had walked in on him at thirteen years old watching Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. He’d been trying to copy one of their hairstyles with a pair of kitchen scissors and her bottle of hairspray. She didn’t say a word about it, but he’d seen the look in her eyes. It wasn’t dissimilar to the critical look in his own eyes staring back at him from the bathroom mirror at twenty-seven.

He brought the scissors up, not entirely caring where they hit their mark, and then… stopped. Even if he was just aiming to cut the length away at this point, he knew a little bit about the precision needed to deliberately craft his layers later. The problem was that his hands were _shaking_ , and he couldn’t make them stop long enough to set the scissors at the right angle. He held them a few inches away from his head and closed his eyes. Breathe in, breathe out. This was just one of those new things he had to get used to. Just another way his body was changed. It would probably get better, but it might not. He just needed to breathe and try again.

The second time he brought them up and steadied them over the section of hair, but when he tried to move his fingers, his grip failed and sent the scissors crashing into the sink with a loud clang. He dropped both hands to brace them against the counter as he inhaled and exhaled. Some indeterminable amount of time later, he felt the beginnings of a headache reaching around his temples and realized that he’d been gritting his teeth. That was his cue to release the counter and straighten his spine, which was also beginning to protest. He caught his reflection in the mirror once again and surprised himself by feeling a little violent about it. He had to clench his fists at his sides to stop the impulse to smash the glass into a million pieces.

It was around this time that he heard shuffling in the hall, followed by a quiet voice.

“Eliot, is that you?”

He turned away from the mirror to see Quentin watching him warily from the doorway. His hair was sticking up on one side, and he was in only a black t-shirt and boxers. He looked adorably disheveled, and being able to recognize that was what brought Eliot back into his own skin. The monster wouldn’t have found a sleepy Quentin adorable, or at least Eliot really hoped he wouldn’t have. 

Quentin asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Eliot said. He scrubbed his hand over his face. “Sorry I woke you up. I was just going to bed.”

Quentin frowned as he glanced between Eliot and the scissors lying in the sink.

“What were you doing with those?” he asked carefully.

Eliot realized then what it must look like, and the last thing he needed was to make a house full of twitchy trauma survivors think he was a danger to himself right now.

“Nothing to worry about,” he said, trying for his most reassuring voice, but he could tell it was falling flat by the little pinch between Quentin’s eyebrows. So, he explained, “I was going to trim my hair, but it can wait.”

Quentin looked at him then, clearly seeing the situation in a new light, and something in his features softened. He said, “Yeah, the monster really did a number on it, didn’t he?”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Eliot agreed.

Quentin cracked a smile then, and it was contagious enough that Eliot felt himself releasing some of the tension in his muscles. Quentin stepped into the bathroom and leaned around Eliot, closer into his space than he’d willingly gotten in days, and grabbed the scissors out of the sink.

“What are you doing?” Eliot asked curiously.

“I mean,” Quentin sort of stammered, “I thought I could try cutting it for you? If you want.”

Eliot couldn’t help it then as a full on grin spread across his face.

Quentin pressed on, “I definitely don’t know how to cut hair, so you’d have to tell me what to do, but...”

Eliot interrupted, “Q.”

Quentin looked up at him wide eyed.

“While you are very sweet for offering, I don’t think either of us thinks that’s a good idea,” Eliot said, his amusement dripping into his voice.

Quentin pulled a glare at him at the slightly patronizing insult, but he conceded Eliot’s point as he set the scissors back down on the bathroom counter.

“I never said it was a good idea,” he retorted.

Eliot laughed a little at that, and the smile appeared on Quentin’s face again.

“You can talk to me about it, you know,” Quentin said, his voice getting softer again as he sort of mumbled the words.

Eliot looked down as he thought over his response. Finally, he replied, “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea either.”

“Why not?”

Quentin was frowning again when he looked up. How could Eliot explain it to him though in a way that wouldn’t make him feel horribly guilty? He knew Quentin. He knew that he would hear Eliot’s own fears about burdening him and internalize them as some kind of personal shortcoming. Eliot had aimed that particular weapon at their relationship before, he thought bitterly.

“We’ve all been through a lot,” he tried.

Quentin’s frown didn’t go away, but he nodded like he understood. He said, “Well, if you can’t talk to me or Margo, maybe you should try talking to someone else. Like a therapist, maybe? I know this is the pot calling the kettle black,” he huffed, “but Jules keeps looking for someone for me to talk to, so I could maybe let you know if she finds anything?”

Eliot considered that for a moment. He’d never done the therapy thing before, but lord knows he needed it. It just wasn’t a thing people like him did, in his experience. He realized that that thought alone was enough proof that maybe he should give it a try though. He undeniably had a lot of internalized shit to work through, not to mention the recent trauma.

“Okay,” he said.

Quentin perked up at that like he’d been expecting an argument. His eyes brightened, and he smiled at Eliot.

“Okay,” he replied.

A silence fell between them again, and you could have heard a pin drop in the apartment. That’s why the quiet shuffle of Quentin’s feet sounded like a bomb as he took one then two steps forward. Eliot froze as he stopped right in front of him and braced himself.

A shy little smirk appeared on Q’s face as he said, “I think that you should probably hug me right now.”

Eliot’s tense posture deflated in an instant. He smiled as he reached out slowly and pulled Quentin in by his shoulder. Quentin instantly melted under his touch and nestled up against him, sliding his arms around his waist to rest his hands on Eliot’s lower back. Eliot buried his nose in his hair as he wrapped his arms around Quentin’s smaller body and held on as tightly as he could without pulling at his stitches. He smelled like the cheap shampoo from the downstairs shower and, Eliot thought a little hysterically, like _home_ in some kind of way that he couldn’t even begin to explain. They stayed that way for a long moment, just breathing and holding on. 

Then, with his voice muffled against Eliot’s chest, Quentin said, “It’d also be okay if you gave my ass just a little squeeze.”

Eliot laughed out loud at that. He felt Quentin shaking against him too even as he was shushing Eliot and warning him that he was going to wake up the whole house. It all felt so warm and good that he just kept holding Quentin and laughing until there were tears streaming down his face.

“God, I’ve missed you,” he breathed through his laughter as he finally regained control of his voice.

“Missed you too,” Quentin agreed.

Eliot was the first to step back and let Quentin pull away. He turned and reached for the scissors so that he could put them back in the drawer where he found them.

“Come on,” he said, turning back to place a hand on Q’s shoulder and usher him out of the bathroom. “It’s way past your bedtime. I’ll get Margo to fix the mess on my head tomorrow.”

Quentin snorted, “It’s 3am. It's past everyone’s bedtime.”

Eliot grabbed his hair tie and pulled his hair back into a low bun as he followed Quentin into the hallway.

“Yes, and I’m going to sleep now too,” he agreed.

Quentin allowed himself to be walked to his bedroom without any fuss, but he paused outside the door as Eliot kept walking to his own room two doors down.

“El?”

Eliot stopped and turned around at the quiet call.

“I’m here for you, you know,” Quentin said. “I know we’re all adjusting and shit, but I’m really glad you’re back.”

Eliot felt a soft smile tug at his lips.

“Thank you,” he said sincerely, “and same.”

Quentin gave him a tight smile and a small nod before disappearing into his dark bedroom, and Eliot turned to go crawl into bed with Margo, who definitely had already fallen asleep waiting for him. Tomorrow she’d fix his hair while lovingly bitching about it the whole time, and maybe before they did that, he’d get up early enough to make breakfast for everyone. It was a nice thought. In reality, his stomach would probably hurt too badly to stand for that long, and his hands would shake too much to be trusted with a hot stove. That would be okay though for another day at least. He was healing, and so were the people he loved. They’d all be okay if they just kept taking it day by day.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know where this little fic came from, but I hope you enjoyed it! Leave me a comment if you want!


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